I decided to test the N95 and the iPhone at the same time because they are considered by many to be in competition with one another. After spending a couple of weeks with each, though, I'm not sure why (other than their hefty price tags). They both have very specific strengths that make them appealing to different segments of the market.

Nokia N95

The N95 is the high-end Swiss Army knife of mobile devices. It does just about everything you could ask for: camera, video recorder, GPS, WiFi, music player, video player, FM tuner (yes, an FM tuner), external stereo speakers... oh, and it makes phone calls. Of course, all of these features will cost you. The N95 retails for $795.

The Good

The Nokia N95 is the most full-featured mobile device I have used. As I mentioned above, it has just about everything.

The 5 megapixel camera blows away every other built-in camera you will find on a mobile device. And because the phone is shaped like a camera, it is easy to hold while shooting. It features zoom, auto-focus and a powerful (sometimes too powerful) flash.

The back of the Nokia N95 looks like a regular digital camera.

The video quality is pretty impressive, too. The N95 even includes an AV cable to connect it to a TV. How many other phone manufacturers would want their phone's video blown up onto a big screen. A 2GB MicroSD card gives you about 1 hour of video recording capacity.

The built-in stereo speakers on the N95 sound really good, too. I often used it without headphones to play music. The N95 also includes audio and EQ settings that let you tweak the sound that comes out of them.

The hardware and software interfaces are better than average as well. The N95 features a 2-way sliding design that shows your phone keypad in one configuration and media player controls in the other. I never really bothered with the media controls because all of those controls were available on-screen when in portrait mode.

Nokia N95 with keypad exposed.

Nokia N95 with music player controls exposed.

Menu items can be selected via 2 separate menus. One is an animated menu (seen in the photo) above. The other is a more conventional list of icons that you would see on a Windows Smartphone or the iPhone. Both do the job, although the animated menu is definitely cooler looking.

Web browsing on the N95 is also pretty good. N95 uses a custom open source browser that supports Flash Lite 2.0. It does a good job of rendering pages and the mouse, which is controlled with the 4-way directional pad, works really well. Of course, there is no QWERTY keyboard, but we'll cover that later.

Twitter on the Nokia N95.

There are also a ton of apps available for the N95.

The bad

Battery life on the N95 is terrible. It would have been better if they had just added a hand crank. At least that way I could guarantee that I would have a usable phone at all times. I think the N95 died on me 5 or 6 times over the two weeks due to low battery. If you don't charge the Nokia every 8 hours or so, you will have a very expensive paper weight in your pocket. In fact, as I type this post, the N95 ran out of juice. Nice!

The build quality of the N95 is a little lower than I expected. The case feels a bit light and the navigational buttons on the front feel kind of cheap. I expected a much sturdier product for $800. In fact, I let several people try out the N95 and all of them commented that it felt a little flimsy. It is also a little bulkier than other devices. Part of that is due to the fact that Nokia tried to shape it more like a camera.

iPhone on the left, N95 on the right.

There is no QWERTY keyboard on the N95, so texting or typing in URLs is pretty tedious.

The GPS requires you to be outside to get a decent signal.

There are also some minor usability issues with the N95. If you slide the N95 to open the media player controls, your screen will be in landscape mode until you slide it the other way to open the phone keypad. That got a bit annoying. Also, by default, the keypad would lock everytime I slid the screen closed. So if I just finished with the media player and then wanted to interact with the N95, I had to hit "Unlock" before I could do anything. Also, if you hit the camera button, but forget to slide open the lens cover, the N95 doesn't let you know what the problem is. I also found that the sliding earpiece section of the phone never felt like it was close enough to my ear. Minor annoyances, but they added up the more I used it.

The bottom line

The Nokia N95 is a good mobile device. It has a lot of high-end features that you wouldn't expect on a mobile phone, especially the 5 megapixel camera; however, the flimsy build quality and bulky case make me question whether I would pay $795 for it.

It is best suited for someone who wants to carry around a single device but still have high-quality audio, photo and video capabilities. Of course, the battery life could make it difficult to enjoy the N95 for long periods of time without stopping to recharge.

Apple iPhone

OK, there is no need for me to give an overview of the iPhone. You do everything with your finger and it costs $599.

Let me start off by saying that I was not a fan of Apple products in general, so I don't want the rest of this post to seem like the ramblings of a fanboy. In fact, I built the iWipe parody just to show what I think of most Apple products. That's why it pains me a bit to admit how much I like the iPhone.